


Bury

by gbyesummer (shouldshy)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Little Mermaid Elements, M/M, Merman!Kai, Oreiad!Kyungsoo, female!jonghyun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 01:44:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7825336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shouldshy/pseuds/gbyesummer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyungsoo wants to swim and Jongin wants to fly. Really, they both just want to breathe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bury

**Author's Note:**

> mythology is based off _The Little Mermaid_ (the original story, not the Disney-fied version) and the poem at the bottom.
> 
> Also inspired by: [♬](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrleydRwWms)

The human sinks. Humans usually float, but this one sinks.

Kai reaches up out of the sand. When his palm hits the human’s back, it jerks and turns to him, bubbles escaping its lips. Wide eyes stare back at him. He sees something big and gray tied to its hands; that must be what is holding it down. He pushes the human up so he can sit and shake the sand off his tail. It thrashes and opens its mouth. He thinks it might be screaming.

Calmly, he pulls the human forward and presses their lips together, breathing air into its lungs. Now he can hear its screams. “Stop that. Why are you here?”

The human’s eyes are red. “Please,” it says, “please let me go.”

He knows the human will die if it sinks to the bottom. But it wants to, and who is he to stop it?

He releases it, watches it sink and lie where he had lain, and swims away.

He comes back two days later, and the human is curled up, floating just under the surface. Its lifeless eyes stare down at him, ropes trailing from its wrists tickling his nose. He tries to move the big, gray orb resting in the sand, but it’s too heavy. He goes to find another place to nap.

 

 

 

The place he has found is quite rocky, but Kai has slept in rougher places. The stones he moves are smooth and cool to touch. They ease his tired muscles when he lays them over himself, hiding from anyone or anything that would happen to glance at the river. He likes it here more than his previous resting spot, though the water there had been warmer. Here, he doesn't have to worry about sand getting in his gills.

No one will see him here, covered in rocks as he is, dark hair blending in with the river bed. The walls of the ravine are high, and the river is deep. He is safe to sleep.

 

 

 

_Tap, tap, tap._ A smooth stone lifts and falls rhythmically against his forehead. As he wakes up, he is suddenly aware of a pressure on his body. On his cheek rests a hand, and its small fingers lift and drop the stone. "You've been sleeping here a while."

Kai tilts his head downwards to lock eyes with the creature on top of him. Wide eyes in a boyish face stare back. He thinks it's another merman until he lifts his tail to shake it off and its body disappears.

He sits up, surprised, scattering the stones all around him. The boy, or whatever it was, reappears as the stones settle. It appears to be sitting in front of him, but how can a creature whose torso fades into the water sit? "What are you?" Kai asks.

"I have heard the humans call my kind nymphs. You must be a merfolk."

"A merman."

"Hello, merman. Why do you sleep in my river? Isn't my brother's sea big enough for you?"

"It is plenty big, but there are plenty merfolk, too. It's quiet here. I can rest."

The nymph tilts his head. "Rest among the stones and trees? Wouldn't sand be softer?"

"Soft enough to get stuck in my gills if I sleep too long."

"So all you want is a good nap?"

"Yes, River. Just want some rest."

"I am not the river, I am Kyungsoo," the nymph says with an amused smile. "But the river is mine, and I say you can sleep in it. As long as you do nothing to harm the ravine."

With that, the nymph vanishes, and Kai swims out to sea for some breakfast.

 

 

 

"What's it like to be out at sea?" Kyungsoo asks.

Kai cracks an eye open and moves, trying not to throw stones off his body and scare away the nearby fish. "It's like being here but bigger. Blue in every direction. Dark blue below, bright blue above on a sunny day."

"But what is it like, merman?"

Having maneuvered all the rocks off his body, Kai sits up. "It can be scary for those who see the open water for the first time. Is that what you want to know, River?"

"I’m not the river," Kyungsoo repeats, waving his hand through the water. "If I were, I wouldn't want to feel the water. I would be the water."

Surprised, Kai asks, "Can’t you feel the water? You’re lying in it."

The other stares at the rays of light penetrating the surface, watching them sway as the water moves. "I can exist in it, but I can’t _experience_ it. I’m here, but I am just a projection of a body. I’m not meant to be in the river." He reaches forward and waves his hand in front of the merman's face. Kai doesn’t feel the water move with it.

Kyungsoo picks up a rock and flips it over repeatedly in his hand. "I can only touch stone," he says as he throws the rock to Kai. The merman pauses, wondering what it must feel like to feel nothing but the hard stones of the river his entire life. Eyes closed, he feels the water moving against every pore of his body. It is cool, but he knows it’s warm closer to the surface. It’s soft to touch, but it can also slam into him like driftwood in a storm. It pushes and threatens to pull him with it, but a lifetime of lingering in moving water has taught him control. He and the fish breathe it in, the humans and plants drink it; water is life. But the nymph has never felt it.

"I’ll tell you about the sea, Kyungsoo, if you tell me about the sky."

"The sky? Why not the land?"

"We both can touch land and I don’t care much for walking," he jokes.

"Of course not, you only wish to lie among the rocks," the nymph admonishes.

The merman smiles. "As do you, nymph."

"You cannot lie among that which you are, silly merman."

 

 

 

"If I had a choice in what I was, I would be a phoenix. I would get to fly through the air, and I would never really die, because I would die and be born again every day."

"You don't enjoy being a merman?"

"No, it's ridiculously boring. If not a phoenix, perhaps a nymph like you. At least I would be able to walk and swim."

"If you could call it swimming, I suppose. But, at least you are a living creature, Kai.  
At least you are alive."

 

 

 

Sink or swim, when you look up at the sky as you float underwater, when you see the blue on blue and the clouds ripple, it may be more beautiful than the sum of all parts. When your lungs begin to burn, when you cannot stay under no matter how long you wish, it’s elating to break through the surface. When you reach the hard, cold bottom, it may be more chilling than the freezing stones and water combined.

You can see the sky and know you will never touch it.

"We both wish to exist in something against our natures."

 

 

 

There is a disturbance. It's not the same rushing down to the sea, or the ripples of fish fins; it is big and weighty. Kai feels the water hit him, displaced. He opens his eyes, and near his head is the nymph, sinking fast.

He reaches out instinctively, too accustomed to touching the backs of sinking creatures, though he belatedly recalls he cannot touch Kyungsoo. He keeps his hand out, regardless.

The nymph is cold, hard as stone, and heavy. Kai can feel his body, his back. Is it his body, he asks himself.

Kyungsoo _is_ stone.

Kai escapes his nest of rocks and lifts, both hands trying to keep the nymph from hitting the bottom.

"Kyungsoo," he calls. If he were strong enough, he would shake the nymph awake, but he is so heavy Kai has to let him hit the bottom.

The nymph's back hits the riverbed, and his wide eyes blink open slowly. Kai yells, "What are you doing? You could have died!"

Wistful smile on his face, Kyungsoo replies, "I can’t die, merman. I’m not alive."

Kai presses on, "What were you thinking? Why would you do this?"

Kyungsoo looks toward the sky and reaches his palm up, reaches out for it. His fingers close around water. "I just wanted," he exhales, "to feel it just once. Just once."

Inexplicably angry, the merman swims away.

 

 

 

Laughter filters through the water. He can barely make out the forms of humans at the edge of the ravine quickly moving towards him.

"Stop it, Taemin!" a voice yells.

"It's perfectly safe, noona!" a voice yells back. "The ravine won't let anything bad happen to you!"

"I'm not worried about me, I'm worried about you!"

"Look!"

One figure stops near him where the water stills. He can get a good look at it, then. A tall young human male with golden hair and a smile so white Kai can see it from the river floor. He stands with his heels touching the wall's edge. "Look, noona!" it calls again. "It's fine, see?"

In a quick motion, the human jumps and twirls and lands so gracefully that Kai would believe he was born of the air. He takes a few steps and kicks his legs out, the space between its body and the ground increasing, increasing.

He almost flies.

He lands on one foot. The leaves beneath his feet shift and he almost slips. Kai can hear a woman shout. But the man plants his other foot down, rather harshly and too close to the wall's edge—his toes stick out. His eyes are blown wide in fear as his upper body teeters over the water. Kai shrinks back. The human had seen him, surely.

He hadn't, thankfully, and he turns to the group of humans a ways down. "See, noona? Perfectly—"

Someone screams.

The bit of ground at the edge beneath the man's foot has crumbled and he topples into the river headfirst.

He is too close to the wall, falling through the water too fast, Kai thinks. The man's head hits the stones at the bottom of the river.

Kai rushes forward.

 

 

 

The first person Taemin sees is Junghee, and even with the pounding sensation at the back of his head he can't say he's upset. He hears the calm trickling sounds of the river, and knows he is safe while he rests his head on her lap. They're in the shallowest end, where the water is steady and the walls of the ravine end.

"You idiot, I told you you would get hurt! You're lucky you weren't carried out to sea! Why do you do this to me, you dumb, dumb—"

She quiets when he places a wet hand against her cheek. "Did you save me?" he asks with a dazed smile.

"I can't swim, remember?" she scoffs.

"I'm sure it was you that saved me. You held me like you are now and breathed air into me."

Junghee blushes. "Do you know what you're saying? You have to stand up, you have to stay awake. Onew has to check your head."

Guards come up on either side of Taemin to help him stand, feet splashing water all over.

They do not hear the distant splash of someone breaking the surface of the river.

 

 

 

Kai swims away.

 

 

 

The sea witch takes his face in exchange for his legs.

Taemin finds him struggling to walk through the forest and helps him reach the city, and Kai thinks the sharp pain cutting through his lower half is worth meeting the man who can fly.

He smiles at him, and even through his bad eye nearly closed from scarring, he can see Taemin smiling back.

 

 

 

The man who can fly is a prince, the Prince of the kingdom that houses Kai's—Kyungsoo's—river.

The Prince loves the forest, and he ventures in every day, bringing Kai and his entourage along. He loves to walk through the forest, run through the forest, and dance through the forest.

He teaches Kai to dance, because dancing is also something the Prince loves. It feels as if he is being sliced in half, but Kai learns to dance because it is what the Prince loves. He gets close to flying when he dances, so he keeps doing it, even when he is alone.

He doesn't find himself alone the three days he gets, not because Taemin spends a lot of time with him, but because Taemin always tries to invite Junghee on his outings. Half the time, she agrees. So Kai does not find himself alone with his flying man, not having enough time to earn his love, as the sea witch told him to do.

Kai learns that his Prince, his Taemin, his flying man loves Kim Junghee more than he could ever love dancing or the forest.

 

 

 

Sitting at the ravine's edge, he wonders if the nymph would hear him. He wonders if Kyungsoo would understand.

"That day you turned yourself hard as rock and threw yourself into the river, I yelled at you. I'm sorry for it. I knew you couldn't be harmed; this is your ravine, it wouldn’t hurt you.

Have you seen these humans? They’re strange creatures. They can jump into the air, and run, and dance, but still I’ve seen so many sink into the waters. I’m tired of it. Water gives life but I have seen it take many away.

But the air—I love the air. Endless sky to breathe in. Endless blue. Endless light, endless darkness.

I found a man who could almost fly through the air. I wanted him to teach me to fly; that's why I've left you. I'm sorry for that, too. I wanted to fly with him, but I couldn’t make him love me. I couldn’t make him kiss me. The sea witch said I must earn a kiss or I would die. I think I’m going to die, nymph."

Sitting at the ravine's edge, he wonders if the water feels different as a human.

 

 

 

He is pulled under immediately, legs too weak and too painful to hold him still.

He lets himself get dragged downstream, human body floating enough that he doesn't hit the rocks of the riverbed. It's a smooth trip.

He closes his eyes; the red, sunset-painted sky burns.

 

 

 

"My beautiful merman."

He stops. Something holds him still, the river continuing to flow around him. He tries not to breathe in, he can’t breathe in. Kyungsoo materializes in front of him. His bottom half disappears into a wisp, and Kai finds himself missing his old tail.

"I don't know—I'm not sure," the nymph hesitates, before bringing a stony hand to the merman's cheek. His fingers trace over the scars, from his eyebrow to his chin. "I’m not human, I’m hardly alive, I don't know—"

He leans forward to kiss him anyway, eyes slipping closed. The merman's eyes follow suit. It's cold and hard, but Kai holds the nymph's head in his hands, and he can feel him, he doesn't slip through his fingers. He hopes Kyungsoo can feel his touch, too.

The sun sets before either can open their eyes again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kai leads Sehun down towards the earth to a river in a forest, once a deep, strong rushing river, now a quiet trickle.

"We have deeds to do, Kai. We can't dawdle for too long."

"I know," Kai replies, smiling down at the ravine, walls still high and floor still filled with stones. "I just want to say hello to a good friend."

 

 

 

* * *

_Whirl up, sea—_  
_Whirl your pointed pines,_  
_Splash your great pines_  
_On our rocks,_  
_Hurl your green over us—_  
_Cover us with your pools of fir._  
—"Oread," by H. D. Imagiste

**Author's Note:**

> I blame [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUNVCqUo0dY) (aka one of the best SYTYCD routines ever) for this plot bunny.


End file.
